Engineering International, Volume 2, No 2 (2014) ISSN 2409-3629 Prefix 10.18034 Voice Search Technology: An Overview Praveen Kumar Donepudi Senior Architect, IPM Practice Division, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA ABSTRACT Voice search technology is not new. It's been there since Audrey came out. But now it is increasing. People are using voice assistants, and so far 420 million voice assistants have been sold. This is growing rapidly because artificial intelligence integrated with voice search technology is more accurate and faster than text search. According to Google, its accuracy has improved to 95%. In short, it's an old technology that's gaining popularity with the rise of mobile phone voice assistants. In this study, the researcher has introduced different aspects and practical implications of voice search technology. Keywords: Voice Search, Search Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Business Learning INTRODUCTION People these days are always looking for quick and easy solutions that can make multitasking more effective. This makes speech-to-text conversion an ideal candidate. Also, those who are not good at typing or who find typing inconvenient find this option very attractive. Advances in technology and low error rates in voice-to-text conversions are changing the way people search online. As more and more people search using voice commands, it makes sense for digital marketers to be able to search content from all types of requests, including voice search, questions, and queries. Websites that were previously optimized for text-based searches and search criteria should now be optimized for voice- based queries. What Is Voice Search? Voice search is basically an advanced technology approach that uses voice-enabled commands to perform a search in an internet browser, phone, or any application. It basically contains a short keyword query for open domains to get information on the internet. Google Voice Search, Siri, Alexa are voice assistants that perform voice search. Meredith Broussard, Data Journalist, New York University Professor This is basically a kind of dialog system with rounds of dialogue. You can also clarify the system for searching. This will give you more accurate results. In other words, voice search is an approach in which the technology uses a voice recognition system to understand what the speaker is saying with reasonable accuracy. It may sound like a brand new technology, but originally it was here for a while. A program with a text-to-speech option is a perfect example of voice search. Copyright © CC-BY-NC 2014, Asian Business Consortium | EI Page 91 Donepudi: Voice Search Technology: An Overview (91-102) Why Is Voice Search Growing So Quickly? Voice search is growing rapidly, and you're not the only one aware of it. We all embrace this trend and for good reason. There are three drivers who are responsible for their rapid success now and in the future. Alexander Radnicky, Research Professor, Carnegie Mellon Speech Group The first reason is that it is 3.7 times faster than input. The faster the search, the faster the answer. Second, it is ideal for portable electronic devices such as mobile phones and tablets. Total of the 60% mobile phone user search with voice. Third, it's more convenient. Better than typing on the keyboard. In short, the use of voice search is no longer hyped. It's a trend and stays here. In fact, it's also starting to affect search engine SEO rankings. Voice Search and Other Spoken Dialog Technologies The table below compares the three types of technologies. User input utterances Target semantic representation Naturalness Input space Resolution Semantic space Form filling/directed low small low small dialog Form filling/mixed- Low-medium small high small initiative Call routing high large low small Voice search Medium-high large low medium-large Why Is Voice Search Important? You may be looking for a reason to know how important this trend is to most people. You may not use it now, but see the stats below the market. These statistics tell you how everyone chooses it and when you should start using it. • By 2020, 50% of all web queries will be voice search. Page 92 Engineering International, Volume 2, No 2 (2014) Engineering International, Volume 2, No 2 (2014) ISSN 2409-3629 Prefix 10.18034 • 50% of people use voice search when searching for products in their browsers and social media platforms. • 40% of adults in the global community use voice search for regular Internet queries. What Does Voice Search Look Like? When you type in the Google search bar, you'll see a microphone symbol just inside the bar. You can click this symbol to actually talk about your query using keywords. But let's explain further through one clear example. A search on the Google bar will bring up a box of interest. Google basically calls them feature snippets. Each time you enter a question, Google derives the appropriate answer from the article via keywords and places it in the snippet. Mike Cohen, Google's Voice Technology Manager Featured snippets come in three forms. One is a one-word answer, the second is a dataset or list, and the third is a paragraph. Google usually displays paragraphs and lists simply because it's very difficult to pull specific data from a dataset. This limits the user's search and makes them unaware of the current data on the Internet. The biggest advantage of featured snippets is that you don't have to rank them first to include website paragraphs. If you are in the top 10 positions, you can jump over other sites and be on top of them. Many web professionals call this area position zero. How Does Voice Search Work? Dr. Frank Ludzic, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-UHN Voice search is very easy to work with. Just read the results from the featured snippet data extracted from the article. So every time you ask a voice assistant, you'll get an answer from the information in the snippet of interest. This is very beneficial for business-to-business transactions. When a website reaches a featured snippet, mobile and desktop users will primarily use voice search, improving their SEO rankings. Voice search has many advantages if you have a website that looks like this: • Brand awareness / awareness. • Increased traffic to your website. • Excellent click rate. How to Turn on Voice Search? • It's very easy to turn on and use voice search. If you have an Android tablet or smartphone, open the Google app. • "Details" is displayed at the bottom right. Click on it and select Settings> Audio. • Turn on voice matching so that Assistance can access the microphone. How to Turn Off Voice Search? When you have to turn off the voice search you have to follow these: • Go to "Settings" in the Google app. Copyright © CC-BY-NC 2014, Asian Business Consortium | EI Page 93 Donepudi: Voice Search Technology: An Overview (91-102) • Click the General tab. • Under the Personal option, there is an Input and Language option. Click. • Then tap GOOGLE OK detection. • To turn it off move to the slider to the left. • You have successfully turned off your Android mobile or tablet. VOICE SEARCH OPTIMIZATION? Voice search optimization is basically a voice-based search engine optimization. It currently plays a major role in the SEO industry and influences the SEO rankings of each website. Spitch CEO Alexey Popov Voice engine optimization is an approach that involves optimizing services, content, locations, websites, and company information, and can boost your SEO ranking through voice-results searches. Search by voice optimization started in 2017. Currently used for quick answers. It's similar to SEO, but it's more competitive. Unlike traditional searches, there are only three results. So if you're not in it, you're the last. How to Optimize for Voice Search? Search marketing is broad and it is very important to optimize voice search to get the most out of it. People want to know quickly and fortunately about special ongoing deals, packages, products, news, or any kind of information. They found a way to find it. Of course, by voice search. Bengomes, Google Search Director Here are five major changes that need to be considered to optimize voice search: Keyword Research for Voice Search The first thing you need to know is that people speak differently. One may use words that the other does not. People ask questions in different ways, especially verbally. Therefore, you need to brainstorm all relevant questions about your business or the product that people may be looking at the answer. There are many tools to help you get the best questions related to your brand. Answer the Public is a tool that helps you create as many questions as you can using specific keywords. People Also Ask is a great Google option to help you get ideas for more questions. Site Structure and Content Development It should be available at all stages of customer support through voice search. People can ask anything about your company, and you should be able to answer them. Here are some points you can focus on when developing and curating better content for voice search: Consciousness. Rating. Interest. Customer support. Buy Loyalty. Page 94 Engineering International, Volume 2, No 2 (2014) Engineering International, Volume 2, No 2 (2014) ISSN 2409-3629 Prefix 10.18034 Try organizing your brainstormed queries and questions into different categories. This will help you map your customer journey properly. Kelly Davis, Mozilla Machine Learning Researcher The most effective solution to this problem is to add the FAQ to every page of your website. Structured Data Optimization The key to optimization is to make the content as relevant as possible to the query.